Lab_4

With a capitalistic economy, the materialism comes hand in hand and the main purpose of the economy is to consume. Since consumption is the only way that will create revenue for the economy. Today this kind of economy is catching around the whole wide world and every economy wants to adopt such a material economy as it brings in the cash.

The first stage of the material economy is the extraction which basically is the using up and gaining of natural resources and making them into raw material. This first stage is the taking of woods from forests, minerals from rocks and many other things from the earth itself. It forms the basic need of the economy without which we cannot move onto the next step. This alone is depleting our resources which are finite.

The next step is the Production. This is to produce the product that has to be consumed it consists of using the raw material and mixing it with other chemicals that are harmful or not and making a finished product which will come in use by the consumer. Finished products like Ipods, furniture, cars etc. The production consists of factories and manufacturing which hires labourers to do the job. In one way its good that it gives jobs but the other side is worse that consists of workers being exposed to harmful chemicals or child labour taking place to make it cheaper and along with that the factories gives out by products which are very harmful to the environment.

After that comes the distribution part which helps the products reach their respective consumers and at a low price. The distribution stages main aim is to keep the inventory flowing and they do this by advertising and enticing people to purchase and that too at low prices. This reels in the consumers like a fish gets reeled in by a worm on a hook. This work is done by distributors, retailers and everyone else involved in the act of selling.

The next part is the consumption part which is the heart of the economy without which all this effort would be useless. This part is done by people like us that, the media and big corporates have put in their best efforts to keep this part moving on and they have kept us in their good hold with advertisements and other promotions and marketing techniques. Their main aim is to sell more consumer goods and increase the money they earn. Consumption has become a real problem as people do not realize that they are shopping for stuff that is not needed and this craze and crave for shopping more and more is not going to stop unless we actually question our conscience bring such a behaviour to a halt and think about the environment, the factory workers, the low paid store worker and the pollution and harm we are causing to the one place we can actually survive.

After this fast paced consumption, all of this has to be taken care off. This is where Disposal comes in and this part just adds to the misery. Just thinking about how can one get rid of so much waste that is being produced, its impossible, where can all of it go the earth is limited and incinerates just make things worse. They pollute the land, the water and the air that we live in. Due to this there are all kinds of natural calamities around the world and all kinds of poverty, hunger, drought and diseases occurring throughout the world. We are ruining the balance of our very sustainable earth.

This all can be changed as this linear system was built by people and so it can be changed by us. We need to build something greener and that moves in harmony or in a circle with each other. This can only happen when the consumption craze stops and people realize as to what is really going on. Today there is good change taking place with projects like green chemicals, zero waste, closed loop production, renewable energy, local living economies etc are in place and helping create a sustainable and equitable environment for us. It should be our duty to be a part of this and help create our earth back.